Charles Richards Dodge was a botanist who worked as the Special Agent in Charge for the U. S. Department of Agriculture's Office of Fiber Investigations, 1889-1898. The Department of Agriculture sent Dodge to Florida in 1889 to gather information and conduct experiments involving sisal hemp and the potential for fiber manufacturing in the state. He produced multiple reports between 1890 and 1893. In late 1891 he focused his cultivation research at Commodore Ralph Munroe's land in Cocoanut Grove. He set up a Van Buren machine to experiment with fiber extraction. Dodge's research eventually led to the Department of Agriculture allocating a small amount of funds to the Florida Fiber Company's new Middle River plantation to encourage the industry. Dodge also authored "Subtropical Florida" in Scribner's Magazine in 1894. This article relates his travels in southeast Florida covering agricultural topics such as cocoanuts, sisal hemp and citrus; places such as Cocoanut Grove, Lake Worth, the Everglades, Miami; and people such as Commodore Munroe, the Seminole Old Matlo and author Kirk Munroe.
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For other topics referenced in the Expedition texts, please refer to the Index to Subjects and Names.
1892 Everglades Exploration Expedition : Three Digital Texts, 2015